"Okay," Harry said, getting on the reaper and clucking the oxen into motion.
"Slower that way, but it'll get some of the field done," Mike said.
"You want a ride up to the house?" Herzer asked, gesturing at the horse.
"I can walk," Mike replied gruffly.
They strode up the side road towards a distant hill, passing through a screen of trees that was apparently kept as a windbreak. On both sides of the road, before and after the trees, there were fields. Some of them were ready for harvesting, in grain and corn, others had plants that were not quite ready for harvest and a few were apparently fallow. The latter were covered in an odd golden plant that looked like a weed.
"Cover clover," Mike said at a gesture from Herzer. "Very good for fixing nitrogen and it forms a 'standing hay' that horses and cattle can eat in the winter." He gestured to one of the fields where low bushes were covered in purple-green berries. "Olive bushes. I'm hoping to get a good crop of olives off them."
"I thought olives grew on trees," Herzer said, fingering the eagle emblem at his throat. In the left talon it held a bundle of arrows and in the right an olive branch. The eagle's screaming beak was pointed to the left.
"They do. And the trees take decades, centuries really, to grow to maturity," Mike said with a shrug. "These grow in a season and you can get more olives per acre than with trees."
"Seems like cheating," Herzer grumbled. "You know why the olive is the symbol of peace?"
"No."
"Because it takes so long for the trees to grow. If you have olive trees it shows that armies haven't fought over the land in a long time. Take away the long maturity and what does it mean? Nada."
"Great, but I'm getting fifty chits a barrel for mature olives," Mike said, with apparent grumpiness. "And I can get two crops a year off the bushes. Even with the cost of field hands and preparation I'm getting ten- or elevenfold profits per season. So you can take your philosophical objections and stuff them."
Herzer laughed and pointed to a group of trees on the back side of the olive field. They were short and had broad glossy leaves that were a dark, rich green.
"Rubber plants," Mike replied. "I'm trying them out. They're supposed to be freeze resistant and fast growing. They grow fast, that's for sure, but this is the first winter they've been out so we'll see how they do."
There was more. Growing fruit and nut orchards, stands of hay, partially cleared fields with cattle on them. Herzer pointed to the latter in question.
"I got together with some other farmers and we rounded up more ferals last year," Mike said as they passed the last field. "That's where I got the oxen, too. And you've never lived until you've tried to turn a feral bull into a plow-ox."
Herzer laughed again as they came in sight of the house. It was a low, log structure, rough in appearance but sturdy and well made. The barn to the side of it was much larger and made of a combination of logs and sawn wood. There were two or three other outbuildings as well.
"Leave it to you to have a better barn than you do a house," Herzer chuckled.
"That's what Courtney keeps saying," Mike replied. "But we're not made of money."
The woman in question came out the door as Herzer was loosening Diablo's saddle. She was a short, buxom woman with fiery red hair and an open, smiling face. Having watched her negotiate, Herzer was well aware that that heart-shaped face masked a mind like a razor, but he was fairly sure the smile in this case was genuine.
"Herzer," she yelled, pulling her skirts away from the child at her side and running to the hitching post. "Where did you come from?"
"Harzburg," he said, picking her up and kissing her on the cheek. As he did he noticed a decided roundness to her abdomen. "Got another one in the oven?"
"Yes," she said with a tone of asperity. "This will make three."
"Three?" he asked then nodded. "I hadn't realized I'd been gone that long."
"Little Daneh is in the crib," she said, gesturing at the child that was still hiding by the door. "Mikey, come here. This is our friend Herzer."
The boy shook his head and then, as her face clouded up, darted in through the door.
"I doubt he's used to strangers in armor at his door," Herzer said then frowned. "I hope he doesn't get familiar with strangers in armor at his door."
"Trouble?" Mike asked.
"Not down here that I've heard," Herzer said. He finished loosening Diablo's saddle and lifted all the gear off, then led the horse to the trough and tied him off. "That was why I was up in Harzburg. Tarson had been taken over by a band of brigands, for want of a better term. They had been raiding Harzburg and the city fathers requested federal help. They got me."